The demand exits my mouth powered by the specific combustion of competitive fury and the unresolved frustration of a woman who hit a man in the balls during a bet and still technically lost.
He grins. Wide. The full version, dimples surfacing, green eyes carrying the dangerous warmth of an Alpha whosecompetitive instinct has been activated by the exact opponent he finds most entertaining.
"Don't make me do things I don't want to, Wildcard. It's not good for my health."
"The only thing good for your health is these hands that are going to beat the shit out of you if you don't rematch me!"
I raise both fists for emphasis, the gloves adding visual mass to the threat, my jaw set with the combative determination of a woman who resolves conflict through the promise of physical violence delivered at volumes that echo off arena ceilings.
"That's called abuse." He tilts his head, the grin not diminishing. "Even in pack terms, Wildcard." His voice drops further, the register entering territory that converts words into physical sensations against my skin. "But I'd kind of love to see you pin me down and punch me silly. If that's your kink, I'll submit for you."
My face ignites. The blush detonating from my jaw to my hairline with the instantaneous, comprehensive coverage that his voice in that register consistently produces. But the fury, the beautiful, functional, defiance-fueled fury that I have been deploying against men who underestimate me since I was old enough to form a fist, overrides the blush and channels it into a response that my mouth delivers before my brain can apply its editorial filter.
"What if it is? You wouldn't even last!"
He laughs. Not the controlled version. The real one. Rich and warm and filling the space between us with a sound that makes my stomach tighten for reasons that have nothing to do with hunger and everything to do with the specific, devastating combination of a man laughing while looking at me like I am the most entertaining person he has encountered in his entire life.
"Sweetheart." The word lands in my chest like a puck finding the five-hole. "I can have you moaning my name in seconds and you fucking know it."
Sweetheart.
He called me sweetheart. On the ice. In front of the twins. Within earshot of a team that is supposed to believe we have a professional, captain-to-player relationship that does not involve the word sweetheart or the promise of moaning or the very specific mental image that is now occupying the entirety of my cognitive bandwidth.
I grit my teeth. The enamel protesting the pressure. My green eyes locked on his green eyes in a stare that is equal parts challenge and confession, each of us daring the other to escalate while knowing that the escalation is heading toward a destination that a hockey rink cannot accommodate.
"Try me."
Two words. Delivered at a volume that converts an invitation into a gauntlet, my jaw lifted, my chin angled upward with the specific, combative elevation that my body produces when it has decided that retreat is no longer available and the only remaining option is the full, reckless, consequences-be-damned forward charge.
His eyes darken by a fraction. The pupils expanding into the green with the specific dilation that I have learned precedes the moments when Archie's mask slips and the Alpha beneath it surfaces with an intensity that makes the air between us feel carbonated.
We are glaring daggers at one another. The distance between our faces measured in inches that neither of us is willing to close in public and neither of us is willing to widen, the tension occupying the gap like a physical substance with its own mass and temperature.
A whistle cuts through the static.
Not Coach Mercer's. The twins. Rowan and Ronan producing a synchronized, two-note whistle that arrives in stereo from their position behind us, the harmonic effect carrying the specific, amused intervention of two men who have been watching this exchange develop and have determined that the participants require external notification of their audience.
"Do they realize the whole team is listening to them bicker?" Rowan asks, his voice pitched at a volume that is designed to reach us and everyone within a thirty-foot radius.
"Probably not," Ronan answers, his cadence carrying the dry, measured delivery that I am learning distinguishes him from his warmer brother. "But I mean, maybe Coach can send them to the locker room to fuck it out."
We turn to the twins simultaneously.
The rotation is synchronized. Our bodies pivoting away from each other and toward the source of the commentary in a mirrored motion that would be choreographed if it were not entirely involuntary, our faces carrying identical expressions of horrified denial that the twins receive with matching grins.
"WHAT?! We're not like that!"
The words exit both of us at the same time. The same volume. The same pitch. The same defensive, over-emphatic delivery that convinces absolutely nobody because synchronized denial is the most reliable indicator of the thing being denied.
The arena is silent.
Not the ambient, mechanical silence of a building between events. The attentive, captivated silence of approximately fifteen hockey players, two coaches, and a maintenance worker who stopped mopping the corridor to listen, all of whom are staring at the captain and the Omega standing inches apart on center ice, their faces flushed, their voices still ringing in the rafters, the wordsweethearthanging in the air like a banner neither of them intended to unfurl.
Every single person on this team just heard that entire exchange.
Every word. Every escalation. The kink comment. The moaning promise. The "try me" that I delivered at a volume calibrated for a stadium rather than a conversation. All of it. Broadcast across the rink with the acoustic generosity of an arena designed to amplify sound and the social awareness of two people who forgot they were standing in one.
Coach Mercer rolls his eyes.
